--- description: A group of defendants belonging to the hacktivist group Anonymous have pleaded guilty in federal court to a cyber attack on Paypal's website. Eleven men... title: Group Charged with Paypal Cyber Attack Pleads Guilty image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Business](/section/business/) * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) # Anonymous Hackers Plead Guilty to PayPal Cyber Attack by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Dec 9, 2013 11:27 AM CUT by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Dec 9, 2013 11:27 AM CUT A group of defendants belonging to the hacktivist group Anonymous have pleaded guilty in federal court to a cyber attack on Paypal’s website. Eleven men and two women were charged with the December 2010 attack against the online payment site PayPal. After WikiLeaks released a large amount of classified material, PayPal suspended WikiLeaks’ accounts so the anti-secrecy site could no longer receive online donations. That prompted the Anonymous group to launch a denial of service attack against PayPal, a coordinated effort intended to make the access to the website impossible. Ten of the defendants pleaded guilty to a felony charge, while three others agreed to misdemeanor charges. [According to Reuters](http://news.yahoo.com/group-charged-paypal-cyber-attack-pleads-guilty-015418986--sector.html "undefined"), if the ten do not violate the terms of their plea in the next year, they can they can change their plea to a lesser misdemeanor. \[[_Reuters_](http://news.yahoo.com/group-charged-paypal-cyber-attack-pleads-guilty-015418986--sector.html "undefined")\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7228999/anonymous-hackers-plead-guilty-to-paypal-cyber-attack/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7228999/anonymous-hackers-plead-guilty-to-paypal-cyber-attack/"},"headline":"Anonymous Hackers Plead Guilty to PayPal Cyber Attack","datePublished":"2013-12-09T11:27:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T10:47:03.348Z","description":"A group of defendants belonging to the hacktivist group Anonymous have pleaded guilty in federal court to a cyber attack on Paypal's website. Eleven men...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7228999/anonymous-hackers-plead-guilty-to-paypal-cyber-attack/","keywords":["Tech","Anonymous"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7228999/anonymous-hackers-plead-guilty-to-paypal-cyber-attack/","name":"Anonymous Hackers Plead Guilty to PayPal Cyber Attack"}}]}] ```